Alibaba's Ant Financial Strikes Deal With Ingenico for European Payments Push
09 Août 2016 - 2:40PM
Dow Jones News
BEIJING—Ant Financial Services Group, the $60 billion
financial-services affiliate of online shopping giant Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd., is partnering with France's Ingenico Group SA to push
its mobile-payment system into Europe.
Paris-based payments provider Ingenico will allow users of Ant's
Alipay, China's biggest online-payments platform by transaction
volume, to access Ingenico's network of offline merchants in
Europe, according to a person familiar with the situation. The
collaboration comes after Ingenico disclosed in its latest earnings
release an agreement to handle some of Alipay's cross-border online
payments.
While no investment will occur, a person familiar with the
offline collaboration said Ingenico will receive service charges
from Alipay users and expects to see their transaction volume grow.
In 2015, Ingenico processed transactions in 170 countries; Alipay
currently is accepted in 70 countries.
Ant's push into Europe with the Ingenico partnership is the
latest in its ambitious expansion plans. In June, it bought a 20%
stake in Ascend Money, a Thai online-payment provider. A month
earlier, Ant Financial orchestrated a collaboration with Uber
Technologies Inc. that gives Alipay users the ability to pay for
rides in the 68 countries where the ride-hailing service operates.
This spring, Ant Financial hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. veteran
Douglas Feagin to spearhead its global push.
The Chinese company has forged other partnerships in Europe and
elsewhere. It has collaborated with Wirecard and Concardis to offer
mobile-payment services to Chinese tourists in Germany, France, the
U.K. and Italy. Last year, it invested in India's Paytm, one of the
country's largest mobile-payment platforms.
Ant Financial is flush with cash after closing a $4.5 billion
fundraising round in April, hanging the $60 billion valuation on
the company. It has said in the past that it plans to list shares
in an initial public offering, but hasn't set a timetable yet.
Write to Alyssa Abkowitz at alyssa.abkowitz@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 09, 2016 08:25 ET (12:25 GMT)
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